YOUNG PEOPLE AND HEALTH

KIRKUS REVIEW

Cain grumbles on, handing out detailed prescriptions on diet, exercise, drugs, alcohol and mental health to that ""neurotic immature society, which, alas, is the teenage population today, like it or not."" The good doctor pities young people who miss the ""ecstasy"" because of their casual attitude toward sex, prefers alcohol to marijuana (at least ""it is nourishing"" and has some values ""in terms of sheer human pleasure"" that the weed can't provide) and pronounces glibly on sociopathic behavior (""Hippies, with their self-defeating attitudes of 'doing their own things,' are the most notable examples of this""). He also has his own program for quitting smoking, his own definition of neurosis, and boundless faith In the harmlessness of chemical food additives (professional football players and the armed forces don't eat organic foods, do they?). With so much advice, some of it is bound to be valid (clean your teeth twice a day. . .), but the chief motivation behind his twelfth book must surely be that Dr. Cain, who retired from active practice in 1965, prefers to treat the grubby, neurotic youth of 1973 from a safe distance.

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